GAYEST HOLIDAY FOR YEARS

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21356, 26 December 1934, Page 9

GAYEST HOLIDAY FOR YEARS

♦ AMERICA CHEERFUL PRESIDENT URGES "ANOTHER YEAR OF HOPE" (UWITID PRESS JLSSOCIATIOK —BY ELXCTSIC TELBGBAPH—COPTaiGIT.) (Received December 25, 9.5 p.m.) NEW YORK, December 24. America to-night is in the midst of the gayest and most prosperous holiday since before the depression years. From every section of the country merchants report that sales have increased by from 10 to 20 per cent, over last year, which recorded a considerable increase over the dark years of 1930, 1931, and 1932.

In New York large department stores were swamped with customers until a late hour to-night, frantically searching for toys; stocks were depleted. All over the city public Christmas trees were lighted, and poor children received gifts and parents supplies of food and clothing. In Washington Mr Roosevelt addressed the nation by radio, while Mrs Roosevelt pressed . a button lighting the municipal Christmas tree. The President emphasised the need for unified devotion "to human welfare and the country," and for another year of hope. "In the last year we have seen fulfilled many things that a year ago were only hopes." The only note of discord in the national scene was a report by the Welfare Department of the Methodist Church criticising Mr Roosevelt for forgetting the "forgotten man." It charged the administration with inducing a lower standard of living by creating artificial scarcity under which the poor were getting and the profit accruing to bankers' big business interests.